File photo: Learfield
The number of people who belong to a union in Wisconsin continued to fall last year.
According to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 8.1 percent of public and private sector employees had union memberships in 2016, down from 8.3 percent in 2015. Overall, union membership in the state fell by about 4,000 workers during that time period.
The decline comes after several years of the Republican-controlled state Legislature passing laws that have weakened the influence of unions in the state. Those efforts include the passage of Act 10 in 2011, which virtually eliminated collective bargaining for many public employee unions, and right-to-work legislation passed in 2014, which prevents employers from making union membership a condition of employment.
Since Governor Scott Walker took office in 2011, union membership in the state has fallen by almost 40 percent.